OM - Schaffhausen 2010

After a lenghty break, here's the most recent of OM's one-off sets (they first reunited for a concert in Lucerne in summer 2006, then they played Willisau in 2008 (Dragan Tasic's photo below is from that concert) and that concert was released on Intakt. Their third reunion took place in May of this year, and it's this concert you can listen to here.

OM were kind of a supergroup of Swiss jazz in the seventies. Taking their name from one of Coltrane's weirdest records, the quartet of Leimgruber, Doran, Burri and Studer recorded a series of fine albums for JAPO. Alas, ECM has gone the sampler route, releasing OM - A Retrospective a couple of years ago. At least their fourth album, "Cerberus," is included in full, along with selections from their earlier albums "Kirkikuki," "Rautionaha", and "Om with Dom" (that's Dom Um Romao who guested on their third album).

The four musicians took very different roads after that - Doran went free as well as electric (with his own band New Bag, as well as with several Hendrix tribute projects), Leimgruber went on to become one of the most impressive avantgarde saxophone players, and Studer became, among many other activities, a member of the great trio Koch-Schütz-Studer... about Burri I don't know much, though. Closest they got before their reunion was a special "Om-Night" at Jazzfestival Schaffhausen's 2002 edition, where all four musicians performed separately with their current bands (the highlight, to me, was a magnificient duo of Leimgruber's with drummer Fritz Hauser). But now listen to the music!

OM
Jazzfestival Schaffhausen
Schaffhausen (Switzerland), Kammgarn Kulturzentrum
May 6, 2010 (Thursday,20:15)

Urs Leimgruber - tenor & soprano saxophones, flutes
Christy Doran - guitar
Bobby Burri - bass
Fredy Studer - drums, percussion

1. radio intro (2:46)
2. Don't You Feel Underdressed? I Suppose You Don't Wear the Passport on You - Part 2 (57:18)
3. radio outro (0:37)

TT: 60:43

Sound: A
Source: DRS 2 "Jazz Live" / 2010-08-06 (Friday, 22:30)
Lineage: dvb-s (MPEG1 Layer 2/256 kbps) > tracked in mp3directcut


:: radio blurbs ::


Zwischen 1970 und 1980 hat die Luzerner Gruppe OM die Schweizer Jazzszene aufgemischt wie niemand sonst vorher. Jetzt, gute dreissig Jahre später, beginnen die vier Musiker wieder, ab und zu Konzerte zusammen zu geben. Und sie fahren nicht dort fort, wo sie aufhört haben, sondern dort, wo sie heute stehen. Das ergibt jedes Mal eine Musik die so frei, unbändig, spannend und unvorhersehbar ist, wie Musik nur sein kann. Klangreisen in unerhörte Gegenden!


OM hat die Energie der Rockmusik mit der Kraft der freien Improvisation vereint. Der Journalist Bert Noglik formulierte es in einer Laudatio zur Luzerner Preisverleihung so:
"OM brachte die Erfahrungen einer jungen, mit den Beatles und den Rolling Stones aufgewachsenen, von Jimi Hendrix elektrisierten und vom Free Jazz faszinierten Generation auf einen musikalisch sinnvollen Nenner." Nach einer langjährigen Spielpause vereinte sich die Band wieder und spielte umwerfende Konzerte. Christoph Merki im Tages-Anzeiger nach dem Willisauer Konzert, schrieb: "Auch die neuen OM, diese ganz neuen OM haben wieder das Zeug zur Legende".